


ten seconds before sunrise

by circuitricardoporno



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Formula E RPF
Genre: Cable Cars, I don't know if I love it or I hate it I never write AUs, I don't know what happened this isn't what I meant to write, M/M, Multi, No Major Character Death, also there is some non-explicit but spy-suitable violence and some injuries, black turtlenecks, fucking weird, oh god this is, some people get kidnapped just warning you, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 19:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circuitricardoporno/pseuds/circuitricardoporno
Summary: Alex slips the USB into his laptop bag, passed to him under the napkin that accompanies his cocktail. He still can’t believe the actual code phrase was ‘shaken, not stirred.’ He tries to fight the urge to check his gun is still against his thigh, not to jiggle his leg to feel the weight. All he’s got to do is get out of here and onto a Eurostar and he’ll be back, first mission accomplished. And quite a coup, at that - he’s got the intel on whatever this new fuel source Liberty are using is, this “Formula 1.”Spies. At Christmas.





	ten seconds before sunrise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [montecarlos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/montecarlos/gifts).



> To S - I'm sorry it's late, it got, as everything always does, totally out of hand. You know how it is, no need for gears with electric torque and the next minute you're 10,000 words deep and researching the German Alps.
> 
> And also, as always, to L - the brilliant Q to my gormless Bond. If I even vaguely knew what that reference meant. Anyway, thank you for coming up with most if not all of the plot and repeatedly saving me from myself.
> 
> Here are some boys just getting through the last gasps of 2017 the only way any of us know how. Crime, espionage, international car chases and sexting.
> 
> This story is non-linear; it pieces together, including the travel time/timezones, if you unravel it but it's a spy thriller: it's not necessarily meant to make sense, it's just meant to look sexy while doing so.
> 
> Title is also the title of Ten Seconds Before Sunrise by Tiesto. There is a suggested soundtrack at the end.

**9:02 January 06 2014**

**Hammersmith, London**

Sam hates debriefings, they’re just dull. Alex looks bored out of his skull, as well - they’ve just _done_ all this why do they have to tell a bunch of people who know perfectly well what happened when they could be doing more things? It’s such bullshit.

“And you neutralised the enemy agent?”

Sam blinks for a minute, realises they’re talking to him, “Oh, yes. Of course.”

Papers are duly stamped and signed before he thinks to add, “Which one?”

\----

**08:26 December 01 2013**

**Paris, France**

Alex wakes up, he thinks. Possibly it would be more accurate to say ‘comes to’ or ‘digs himself painfully out of a world of concussion and - yeah, he’s pretty sure he’s been poisoned.’ He tries to work out where he is without opening his eyes - and how dangerous he thinks it is to move.

He feels sort of well-supported but not tied up, which is a good start. He experiments with moving his right hand, then swearing when it clangs off some freezing metal immediately above his head. Actually he is in quite a lot of pain - none of it apparently fatal, as yet at least and somewhere confined and rank-smelling.

Ok, ok, he’s opening his eyes. It’s dark, bar a sliver of light that glows cold and bright and freshly through a gap at the top of the… he’s in a dumpster. Oh _fuck,_ he’s in a dumpster. Where are his things?

He stands up unpleasantly fast, at least having the wherewithal to put a hand above his head as he opens the lid onto the frosty brilliance of a Parisien street, ice crunching under his hands and making him swear as he unsteadily clambers out of the bin. His laptop bag is not here.

Alex decides to take stock: he’s alive, he’s not got any significant injuries and although he thinks he may have just spent six hours (judging by the position of the sun - his watch is, of course, long gone) napping off quite a lot of … he analyses the weird feeling in his mouth and decides ketamine, probably, in a bin, this could have gone worse. He doesn’t seem to have been arrested and tortured for secrets and yesterday he’d managed to get the- _fuck._

Alex uses every French swear word he knows, a vocabulary quite considerably increased by the last 24 hours, while kicking the fucking dumpster. Fuck! And _putain_ , for sure. Before walking to the nearest bakery, turning over a mangled 5-Euro note in exchange for something to eat and trying out some English ones, chewing greedily, as he phones Sam from a thank-god-they-still-exist call box.

He reads the calling cards for sex workers in the booth while he’s waiting for the dial tone to connect, wondering if any of them might know where he can get a discreet STD test around here. He’s pretty sure he needs to and he’s not sure he wants to tell HQ. In the end, it’s only a few rings before Sam answers and he tries to describe things without shouting too much in the quiet of December in a Clignacourt side street.

“Alex, please. It has happened to the best of us - and no one can understand you with a mouth full of fucking croissant, meet me at Gare du Nord.”

\------

**11:53 November 30 2013**

**Somewhere under Tempelhof, Berlin**

“Well well well.” Oh, fuck _off,_ fuck off fuck off fuck off fucking _Andre._

Sam does not turn round because he is not a fucking amateur. “Hello.”

“What brings you to East Berlin?” Urgh, Sam can _hear_ the black turtleneck he knows Lotterer is wearing, somehow.

“Pretty sure it’s just Berlin, these days.” There’s a slight click, where he’s got his ear pressed against the cold iron of the door to what’s allegedly a service room, in the side of this train tunnel. Andre must know that if Sam doesn’t open the door in the next 37 seconds they are both paste under the wheels of a double-decker intercity, headed straight to Zurich.

This tunnel is not really used so much anymore. At least, not as maintenance access - the lack of duck-away holes means it’s too dangerous and there only being this one, small room in the side of one of the main branch junction tunnels means there’s no real need for anyone to be down here. Which is exactly the kind of thing that makes, say, a spy want to go and have a look.

Sam’s been on a cold trail for ages - electrical spikes across different cities, no apparent explanation, no apparent connection to anything. It’d looked like they’d found something in Moscow, a few years ago but then Jaime disappeared and it’s been the damnably frustrating business of trying to work out if you’re onto something that makes up about 90% of espionage ever since.

Another quiet click in the door and he rotates the pin he’s drilled into the lock. 11 seconds and then it’s bye-bye spies, which would be a shame as he likes to think him and Andre have the sort of resentful banter that’s under-represented in modern intelligence, with all the computers and nerds and whatnot. Shit, 9 seconds.

He twists the pin again, jabs it deeper for a second and listens for the squeal - _yes -_ oh no, shit, no, that’s not the pin that’s the squeal of the tracks and he tries _everything_ for a frantic one-point-seven-something seconds, according to his well-calibrated mental timer.

Fortunately, because Sam is very good at his job - and also an extremely reasonable bloke, for someone whose career has mostly involved chasing things down while they try to get away from him in various fairly dangerous ways - the ageing KGB lock clicks, the door falls heavily inwards and he tugs Andre with him into the gloom.

——

**16:28 December 16 2013**

**Hammersmith, England**

Mitch looks good in a suit. It’s one of the facts he knows about himself, like what his name is and usually roughly which timezone he’s working in. He’s not actually as big a showoff as he thinks people seem to assume he is (which is really quite rich coming from his colleagues, anyway) and it’s not that he’s _bothered_ but it might have been fucking considerate of them to invite him to the Christmas party.

Ok, his spying is a little more technical. And yes, he knows what technical means - it’s spending ages going over data and the scenes where someone bangs your head off the table at 3:49am are more likely to be entirely on your own, next to your fifteenth styrofoam coffee of the night.

But he’s still _fun._ Ugh, he kind of wants to ask Abt if he’s been asked but then what if he has and it’s not that they think they’re _nerds_ it’s that they hate, specifically, Mitch? Ant might know but Ant might not _care_ because he’s being transferred to fucking Rotterdam and seems deliriously happy about it for some reason, a sure sign he needs some of that special trauma leave stuff they’re meant to use.

Drumming a pencil on the desk, twiddling it between his fingers he works up a pretty good seething resentment. It's not like that lot would be any good without him, you can't have a precision mission alone, they're just the wetworks team for his art.

Getting into Government Programme 2 had seemed like a really great career move at the time. It still is, honestly - working up through the ranks of the old Government Programme 3 had been a brutal pain in the ass but getting in here young was definitely worth the accelerated programme so it’s not like he ever questions it but _honestly_ would it kill them to include him?

He thought he’d been doing really well in terms of getting into the field agents’ good books, earning their weird respect and now he’s sulking because maybe they never _will,_ maybe he’s just better off organising _nerd drinks_ with Daniel and they could lie and say they think Robin will be there to get Ant out.

Mitch glares at the data readout on his screen and takes a more-aggressive-than-is-wise-given-how-hot-it-is swig of his coffee. Fucking _nonsense._

Which is when he stops stewing and starts thinking enough to realise what he’s looking at, rather than through. Taking a few more cautious sips he grabs the ultra-secure field communication phone, starts tapping; ok, he might use a few more emoji than a lot of the technical guys but he is _sure_ Alex wants to know about this.

——

**11:54 November 30 2013**

**Somewhere slightly deeper under Tempelhof, Berlin**

The room is quiet and cold and slightly dank, which is a shame because anything in here is going to be ruined. The screaming howl of hundreds of tonnes of intercity train hurtling past a foot away seems to keep them both spellbound for a moment, after the door clunks safely shut behind them.

“I don’t suppose you know what this is supposed to be, to save us some time?” Sam isn’t hopeful Andre would give him a _truthful_ answer even if he bothered to throw one out at all but he gets slightly nervous during awkward silences around enemy agents.

“Mmm, no - I just noticed you were in town and thought we should catch up.” Andre is annoyingly tall and they are standing irritatingly close and Sam is absolutely certain he could take him but the guy is just so _bulky,_ urgh.

“Great, good.” Yes, this is all going exactly to plan. Sam turns his torch on and tries to work out if there’s anything worth spending more time with Andre in here. “Shouldn’t you be trying to kill me or something?”

“I don’t know, should I?” Andre sounds amused, like he thinks it would be easy to kill Sam if he wanted to _which it would not be._

“Maybe. What do you know about Liberty’s interests in North Africa?” Sam doesn’t miss the flinch - good, that means Andre most certainly is _not_ just hanging around to see if he’s onto something.

Andre doesn’t reply, which is another tell - both of them are a little better at blowing things up and driving away from them very fast than the deep cover element of intelligence. The German pushes past him into the room, flicking on his own torch, dimly illuminating a filing cabinet that honestly looks like the most interesting thing in here.

Sam tries looking in the other direction, which is mostly a wall. With a light switch on it, which probably doesn’t do anything but if you see a thing to fiddle with and don’t fiddle with it, are you even a spy anymore?

To his surprise, it actually works - dim halogen tubes sputter to life in the ceiling and a whirring noise starts up in the corner - generator, presumably. He can’t believe it still has fuel in but maybe no one’s been in here since the 80s - or, far more plausibly, someone is regularly using it.

Sam turns round to eye Andre. Andre is someone. Someone who is here. And who is either much better as not reacting than he normally is or knew that was something that could happen - the fact he’s already looking at the generator thing would support the latter theory.

“Hmm,” Andre says theatrically, which is a bad sign. “I think I do actually remember something about Liberty and North Africa now.”

Sam regards the generator warily, trying not to be too obvious about getting his back against the door. It looks like it has an unusually large number of interestingly moving parts and Sam’s not one of the nerds but he knows a ruddy great battery when he sees one.

Andre looks very amused, the strip lighting illuminating the silver of his hair and a wolfish grin, “Yes, I think I found out that Government Programme _Zwei_ were investigating something there.”

Lotterer pauses to tap his chin, in a drastically cliched supervillain move. Andre may think he’s the hero, of course but well, Sam is biased on that front - “In fact, the World Espionage Counsel are quite interested in that, I think someone said I should, ‘ _extract what they know at any cost’_ so it’s actually rather convenient bumping into you here.”

Oh, bollocks.

\-----

**??:?? December? ?? 2013?**

**????,?????**

Daniel has never been captured before. It didn’t seem like a risk, since he mostly works in the world’s most secure basement. He’s never been trained and he doesn’t have a cyanide pill, isn’t sure what being tortured is like except that he’s really hoping to avoid it because he’s fairly sure he won’t stand up to it well.

Also, he isn’t totally sure what day it is except that he’s probably either already missed or is right now missing the Christmas party in order to be tied to a chair with a bag over his head and they hardly _ever_ get free booze in the office and he doesn’t know anything useful anyway so this is all _hugely_ unfair.

He’d been walking home from the tube when someone had shoved a rag covered in… something, probably chloroform, into his face and then there was an indefinite gap and a massive headache. He’s heard the field agents talk about this - getting knocked out, even if it’s not by brute force, gives you the _worst_ migraines.

He supposes he’s a field agent, now. He’s not actually sure if he’s still in the UK - he could have got no further than Shepherd’s Bush for all he knows, which is a reassuring thought because if they realise he’s useless and let him go soon then he can probably make it back before the free bar ends.

“I’m going to untie you,” says someone, untying him, “Not so you can go, just so you understand you can’t escape.”

When the bag comes off his head and he’s blinked a few times, suddenly much more able to breathe, he sees his captor is a tall, dark haired man who is holding a remote control. He doesn’t look quite as threatening as Daniel assumed - in fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d say the guy would fit right in in the nerd basement without anyone even noticing him,

“You are probably wondering why you’re here.” The man nods to himself at the end of his sentence, like he’s reassuring himself of the plan. “You are not a field agent, your work is mostly incomprehensible and you have very little success at doing it.”

Daniel feels aghast, an emotion he didn’t know was in his range, “What? Dude. _You_ kidnapped me, I’m not here for a fucking performance review.”

The guy smiles at him, like he thinks Daniel is funny but in a way that says he’s at least a little bit laughing _at_ him. “I did, yes.”

“Well what the fuck do you want, then?” This isn’t how he thought interrogations went, maybe it’s a mind game?

The guy smiles again, with a bit of threat. “A talk.”

“I’m missing the Christmas party for this, you bastard.” Daniel would like this git to know.

“There is champagne here, you’re missing nothing.” The guy fiddles with the remote, pressing a complicated series of buttons. “Now, what do you know about this?”

A screen shimmers into being, in front of him - well, not a screen, a hologram of a screen - showing a data set Daniel knows all too well. “A lot. Where did you get my code?”

“Your security is not as clever as it thinks it is. I will try a different way; why are you building an AI?” The guy looks genuinely curious, “I was surprised by the complexity, if I’m honest - there are not so many with such detailed risk calculations.”

Daniel swallows thickly because he is pretty sure this is where he’s meant to lie or something and also this isn’t really the avenue of questioning he was imagining would be gone down.

“I am really interested, by the way. And to code the output as sexting, this is a witty stroke - quite staggeringly filthy, too.” The guy looks conspiratorial, “WEC never would have let me do that, I thought you were all more repressed.”

Daniel can’t stop his grin, “Ah yeah, about that, erm, code...”

\-----

**21:33 November 30 2013**

**Paris, France**

Alex slips the USB into his laptop bag, passed to him under the napkin that accompanies his cocktail. He still can’t believe the _actual_ code phrase was ‘shaken, not stirred.’

He tries to fight the urge to check his gun is still against his thigh, trying not to jiggle his leg to feel the weight. All he’s got to do is get out of here and onto a Eurostar and he’ll be back, first mission accomplished. And quite a coup, at that - he’s got the intel on whatever this new fuel source Liberty are using is, this “Formula 1.”

“ _Bonsoir.”_ Alex tries not to jump out of his skin. He’s new to this but not an idiot, he’s got to prove himself worthy of the field. The man next to him at the bar looks him in the face, slightly scrutinising, “ _Oh, savais pas que c'était toi._ ”

Ok, ok, the dude just thought he was his friend, who he’s probably meeting in this bar because that’s what bars are for, if you’re not collecting secret data. “Sorry, _ne parle pas Francais._ ” Alex does an awkward and very British shrug, just to emphasise it.

“Ahh - I err, I thought you were my friend. Is it ok if I wait here?” Alex nods, goes back to fiddling with the salt crusting the edge of his margarita.

“Is the martini good?” Alex is surprised to realise the French guy is still talking to him, tries not to be too awkward when he looks over again. The guy’s about his height, slim, non-threatening. Not the kind of towering, Slavic menace he irrationally associates with the type of people who might try to stop him safely getting back to the office.

“It’s ...uh, it’s a margarita.” Alex _swears_ the dude flutters his eyelashes at him, just slightly. He’s got the looks for it, to be fair - soft dark hair falling around his face messily, a beard just shy of scruffy framing handsome features. Alex didn’t check if this was a gay bar, actually. It hadn’t occurred to him to but now he thinks about it, there _are_ an awful lot of men in here for a cocktail place.

“My mistake,” purrs handsome-and-French, before holding out his hand. “Jean-Eric. It is my pleasure to meet you.”

\-----

**20:22 December 07 2013**

**Marrakesh, Morocco**

Jean-Eric has issues, he knows. There’s a basic requirement to have some, to do anything this dangerous and enjoy it. Well, sort of enjoy some of it, anyway.

The thing about doing anything very dangerous is that the main trick is not fucking it. Which isn’t to say not doing any fucking, which can be a totally reasonable tool in anyone’s arsenal when walking the tightrope of ‘mortal peril’ and ‘bad ideas.’ Just that you need to be comfortable making major calls on the fly if you want to stay alive.

If you’re in a situation where mortal peril is an option - and he almost always is - then, regardless of how terrible the other idea is, you should always choose that. The bad ideas may lead to _other_ mortal peril but there might be even worse ideas to explore, by then. In his experience, there always have been; anything is better than _definitely_ ending up dead.

Take some choices he’s made recently, for instance; Liberty seem to be trying to kill him for some infraction or other that’s surely nothing to do with having blown up their factory in Bahrain and so he needed to find a way to avoid that, which meant finding out what they were doing so of _course_ he traced another spy who might know what that was and not who he is, showed them a good time, poisoned them a teensy bit and dumped them in a bin. And then he had to get out of Paris fast so he stole the guy’s car and headed to Gibraltar before he really looked through the information.

Which, it turns out, is the sort of thing that isn’t going to make any _fewer_ people try to kill him and he’s having a little bit of trouble getting in touch with his agency while the organisation he's been double crossing them for tries to murder him. He needs some _really_ bad ideas.

The sort of thing like “Ambush the GP2 agents, one of whom he recently stole a lot of data from and the other of whom probably wants to kill him for the thing in Paris _last_ year.”

“ _Enchantée,”_ he opens with, because he is both polite and charming and it winds the younger one up so much it buys him a few seconds with only Sam shooting at him.

From behind a wall, he tries yelling over the gunfire “You can't get your data back if I'm dead.”

“I'm willing to find out, you fucker,” is Sam's hollered reply. Oh dear, this really isn't going well.

“I need help.” British agents, they think they're so high minded - you just have to appeal to their better nature and they will, he really hopes, indulge you.

“Well don't fucking _screw_ over junior agents then, asshole. You can help yourself.” That emphasis makes him wince but the shooting has stopped; oh, sometimes they are so very easy to play. He tentatively waves a hand over the wall.

“Don’t send junior agents to do your dirty work. We all do what we have to.” He retracts his hand quickly as a (hopefully) final shot whistles over his head.

He hears Sam sigh, “What do you _need help_ with? Selling stuff to Liberty?”

“Actually, they are also trying to kill me.” He emerges from behind the wall - if Sam’s stopped swearing and started asking him questions he’s probably safe to stand up, at least.

“That’s understandable.” Alex manages to deliver the quip without blushing too much, meeting Jev’s eyes with a slight flicker of panic, a stiffening in his neck. Ah yes, definitely a rookie.

“Why’s that then?” Sam says it disinterestedly, looking at his gun like he’s hoping it might give him an answer for why he’s not currently shooting at Jev.

“I ah…” Jev decides it may be worth some truth, as a bad decision rather than getting shot for the sixth time this year, “I blew up their factory.”

Sam looks up sharply, with a slightly impressed, slightly amused expression. “Bahrain was you?”

Jev can’t stop the grin, “Yeah.”

Sam looks at him for a long few seconds, scrutinising, “Ok fine, you’re coming into custody.”

Jev holds out his hands in front of him, over the wall, looking only at Sam as the new guy cuffs him.  “You used to buy me dinner first.”

\-----

**23:59 December 19 2013**

**Somewhere above Untersberg, Bavaria**

“Urgh” Jev looks slightly vulnerable, leaning back against the wall of the cable car and almost huddling into the expensive-looking padded jacket he’s slipped over his shredded tux. Which Sam is _absolutely_ not falling for. Not again. Just because he’s rescued the dude doesn’t mean he’s a fucking idiot.

“How did you get that black eye?” Jev surprises him by chuckling, something slightly dirty and bashful about it.

“I tried something that didn’t work out.” Even only being able to half-open one eye, a startling shade of purple blossoming just under his eyebrow, Jean-Eric really is annoyingly visually distracting. “You know your new explosives expert, part of the Faenza rescue?”

Sam thinks for a minute. He tries to keep track of all of them, of course but he’s been a bit busy recently and that doesn’t quite ring a bel- “Chadwick? No, Jev - she’s a fresh recruit that’s just-”

Jev laughs again, “I think she is fine to look after herself, no? Anyway, my methods are not so effective.”

\-----

**13:15 December 01 2013**

**Paris, France**

Gare du Nord is as busy as ever, wheelie suitcases a constant danger to ankles and shins as people rush for trains. Two men in dark wool coats, even one of them smelling slightly like a bin, do not stand out at all.

“Do you want…” Sam pauses for a minute, “I don’t know, a hug or something?”

Alex feels himself shudder, “Not really.”

“Good. Good good good. Seriously, he gets us all at some point, best to get it over with early.” Sam shuffles his feet, like he’s in a bit of pain standing up. Alex decides not to ask because they have other problems and he really needs Sam to focus on looking after _him_ right now, embarrassing though that is.

“I don’t suppose you read any of it before it went… elsewhere?” Alex shakes his head. Stupid, stupid, stupid why did he not just go straight to the fucking station? Argh.

Sam huffs, “Alright, no worries. He’s stolen your car, right?” For some reason, that’s what really upsets him, setting Alex off down a shame spiral. “Don’t worry, he always does that - which means we can track the big idiot.”

That perks Alex up a bit. Perhaps he has not been totally bested by this Jean-Eric guy. “Who does he work for anyway?”

Sam hums while tapping at his phone, “Hmm, possibly WEC? _Definitely_ Liberty but in some weird way where they only seem to pull him back in every now and then. It’s a shame, he’s actually a good agent he’s just constantly on the wrong fucking side.”

Sam’s level of frustration about this fact feels unexpected - Jean-Eric is clearly an enemy combatant, who has recently if not actually tried to kill then showed a pretty decent disregard for Alex’s life or future career. “Do you know him?”

Sam hums again and his phone lights up suddenly, displaying a map “Oh, the nerds have cracked it - right, he’s headed south, looks like Jerez, maybe? There was an old facility there but he’s got a head start, let’s get going.”

Alex is much taller than Sam, which is the only reason he manages to catch up, jumping two suitcases and apologising profusely for bumping several people as he tries to get to where the older agent is buying tickets to Charles de Gaulle.

“Where are we going?” Aside from the airport, presumably. Alex is feeling underprepared and overexposed and various other things a spy really shouldn’t be and he’d really like to regain control and also get rid of this poisoning-hangover anxiety he seems to have. If he had his phone he’d be tempted to look up “how to get over a k-hole” but he doesn’t really want to ask Sam.

“Seville, it’s the only direct flight - fuck knows where he’s actually going, though, we’ll have to think on the plane. He’s not _quite_ stupid enough to take your car all the way there, even if he does want our attention.” Sam grabs their tickets with slightly more force than the machine probably deserves, which is all weirding Alex out. Maybe Sam’s angry at him and trying not to show it? Oh god.

“Why would he want that?” Alex is shoving through the crowd again, chasing after Sam as he seems to find nonexistent gaps between luggage and humans to slip through.

Sam doesn’t reply, which slightly pisses Alex off because if there’s intel on this bastard then he probably needs it, as well an increasingly urgent shower that he doubts he’s going to get before they board. Which, to be fair, is probably worse for Sam if they get seated together. Which airline do they normally fly with? They haven’t printed boarding passes oh _no_ he’s having an anxiety attack, as though literally any of this matters to spies.

It’s standing room only on the train to the airport, Sam frantically arguing with, presumably, HQ on his phone all the way. Alex stands awkwardly next to him, trying to look like a bored businessman flying home for Christmas not ‘potentially the most miserable junior agent ever, right now.’

Left alone with his thoughts, he tries to piece together the previous night. He’d had a few drinks with now-know-as-Jev and the guy hadn’t been getting _uglier_ with every margarita and his friend had never shown up. Which Alex now realises is the most transparent thing in the world but well, his Eurostar had been the next morning and every time the guy caught his eyes he’d felt a bit hypnotised.

Which had led to falling into a bathroom, hands all over each other and a _lot_ of very pleasurable grinding and the dude had seemed so _into him_ which, of course, fucking _hell._ He’d come with Jean-Eric pressing him against the wall, whispering filth in his ear and then regretfully kissing Alex’s jaw, sadly stroking a thumb across his cheekbones and sticking a rag in his mouth that’s the last thing he remembers before waking up in the bin.

As they queue their way through the barriers into the airport, Sam pats him on the shoulder, “It’s not ketamine by the way, you’ll be ok in a few hours. And yes, I do know him - fuck only knows what he wants but he tends to _sort of_ get it, it’s just a lot of other stuff ends up on fire and it’s important to make sure none of that’s yours.”

Alex nods, not really understanding anything any better than he had five minutes previously. But the idea he might not feel like utter mental roadkill in a few hours is encouraging, at least. Given no one has actually shot at him or anything, this has all been a bit much - he’d known the field would be difficult as soon as he started training but he didn’t expect to have to deal with mysterious personal histories while trying to work intoxicants out of his system. Which maybe should have been a module they included, in retrospect.

Sam opens a lockbox in a hotel at the terminal, hands him a new phone and a wallet stuffed with cards - “Go and get new clothes. The Hugo Boss place, we get a discount and it’ll annoy Jev.”

——-

**03:17 December 01 2013**

**Berlin, Germany**

Sam _hates_ running across rooftops, it’s a fucking nightmare, especially in the dark and ice but Berlin streets are just as bad and there _has_ to be a fire escape he can get down soon because he’s running out of this block. Fucking _Andre_ isn’t as quick as him but has half a foot height advantage so Sam’s sprinting flat out just to stay ahead and this bit of the whole thing is honestly the shittest.

At least he knows he’s onto something. He’s going to call Alex in, maybe - Andre doesn’t know what Liberty are up to any more than he does, from his attempts at questioning Sam before he managed to get hold of a chair, whack the German over the head with it and start running.

Oh thank fuck, a fire escape - he hurtles down it, feet clanging on the frozen metal while he internally prays not to slip and bite it on the frost. He’s three flights down before he hears Andre following, which is good because he reckons he can jump in another half a flight’s time, which is about two seconds and then a slightly scary leap that he definitely feels as he hits cold cobbles. Oof.

Actually that might have been a bit over-optimistic. Trying to stand up out of the tumble he went into to absorb the impact, he rolls his ankle and nearly stacks it before he’s up and running again, his lead on Andre almost wiped out. _Fuuuuuck._

As he skids round a corner, he thanks every bit of training he’s had for remembering street maps under pressure, pounding up the road to the tram stop. He makes it with no seconds to spare, his coat catching in the closing doors as he watches Andre’s pursuing form get smaller.

It takes a few tram swaps, a taxi ride and finally making it to the safe house before he relaxes enough to splint his ankle. Fuck, that sucked. He hisses, pressing an ice pack against it, as he pulls a wad of paper from his jacket. Grabbed randomly, he’s not got much hope for it containing anything, especially anything he can understand but it’s worth sending it back to the nerds at least.

He’s halfway through photographing each page and sending them to Daniel when Alex calls him about _fucking_ Jean-Eric, which is a classic addition to the line-up.

\-----

**??:??  ?????? ?? 201?**

**Seriously now???, ?????**

“So you really just built it for fun?”

Daniel can’t help laughing, the guy looks so shocked, “Err, yeah - HQ have never been like ‘ _hey, those field agents get lonely, better send them some sexts’_ you know?”

“But why? So much detail, it calculates every grammatical tic of the replies to formulate its own response, it weighs the likelihood of so many combinations - it changes _gender_ based only on suggestions from someone’s words, it knows your kinks before you do…” The guy looks flabberghasted, “It’s a work of brilliance and you just… actually use it for sexting?”

He can’t believe he’s been kidnapped over this, this is the dumbest thing that’s ever happened. “Uh, yeah - it does my Tinder replies when I’m busy.”

“Tinder?” Uptight IT Worker, as Daniel has started thinking of him, looks even more confused.

“It’s, you know, an app? For dating?” He’s beginning to worry he may just have been abducted by a maniac, is this guy actually in any way a spy or is he just going to like… fuck Daniel up with thumb screws and then drop his body in a ditch for the sheer unadulterated hell of it?

“Oh, I’m married. So you do that at work?” It sounds bad when someone puts it _like that_ but like, how else is he meant to meet people? Who aren’t Mitch, which was a bad idea that they must never speak about ever again.

“Uh… yeah? Like, if this is all some weird act and you’re like, HR, then can I at least still go to the Christmas party man? I swear I’ll delete the bot, I did it while I was trying to stay awake because Robin got re-drafted so we’re pulling double shifts.” Oh god, this would be _really_ like fucking spy HR, now he thinks about it. Fuck, what a dumb career.

“No, I suppose I was just… curious to meet you. I’ve never found anyone else who could write something so complex, let alone for fun.” The dude looks a bit crestfallen and Daniel feels like he should be being interrogated better or something. Maybe he should call him a bastard again?

‘Who are you, anyway? And you work for… WEC, right?” The guy nods. “No seriously, who are you and where am I and when can I go home? I seriously am missing the _one_ time they give us free booze, man.”

The guy stares at him, hard, for a few moments. Then gets up, turns around and goes to the corner of the room, opens a cupboard or something - fuck, fuck, fuck is this when the thumbscrews get involved? Oh shit.

There’s an explosive noise, then the sound of pouring and the guy comes back with two glasses. “I told you there was champagne. My name is Lucas, you are in Kempten, south Germany and you’ll be treated very well here.”

\-----

**09:31 December 13 2013**

**Tangiers, Morocco**

“You take the upstairs, I’ll try and get the payload.” Sam holsters his gun, trying not to let himself worry about the fact this is _exactly_ the sort of thing that constantly goes massively wrong. Especially with Jev there, which is just… bad.

It’s bad because there is an almost 100% chance Jev will double-cross them somehow and worse because despite _knowing_ that, Sam’s brought him along under the flimsy pretense it would be better for WEC not to get hold of him again. Or worse, Liberty. Which ok, it _would_ be very bad for them to find out what he and Alex are up to now but also he’s pretty sure they’d shoot Jev before they asked him any questions.

So really what he _ought_ to be doing is leaving the double-crossing son of a bitch to them and getting on with things _without_ the absolute certainty that this is about to go sideways, Jean-Eric will be responsible and he will probably get fucked up somehow. He can feel Alex’s eyes on him, as he finishes strapping weaponry everywhere he can, not bothering to conceal carry for this.

“Can I at least have a gun?” Sam gives Jev a withering look.

“ _No._ People who repeatedly betray people do not get approved for lethal force.” He digs around in the boot for a moment, “Here’s some mace, knock yourself out - possibly literally, it’ll make the drive back quieter.”

He doesn’t want to leave Jean-Eric in the car, that seems even stupider than having him here in the first place. Even if Sam ties the guy up it’s almost guaranteed he’ll find a way to drive off, it’s the problem with both of them being _really good at this._

“Ok, revised plan - Alex, you still take the upstairs, Jev you’re coming with me.” Sam clips the final strap into place and hopes he hasn’t just made a truly horrific decision.

“Are you sure?” In the six days since they picked Jev up, Sam estimates that Alex has relaxed about one milimetre maybe twice. He’s jumpier than is really useful already but, well, Sam can’t run his life for him entirely and _hopefully_ anything explosive will be blowing up in his face not Lynn’s.

Broad, morning daylight is not traditionally the time for three people (two of them in any way adequately armed, one of them likely with their own agenda) to storm a secure factory but needs must. Sam tries to avoid making any too middle-aged grumbling noises as he checks every holster for the fifth time. “Right then. Alex - you go first and get up there, freak them out a bit, we’ll be a minute behind.”

“You know I’m trying to help, right?” Jev sounds slightly hurt, which is ridiculous.

“Yes, your _help_ is kind of what I’m worried about, Jev.” Sam sets off towards the factory, scaling the fence without looking to see if Jean-Eric is following him - he either is or he isn’t but Alex will need help regardless, so here they are. There’s a moment, in every mission, where out of the anxiety of planning it becomes the freefall of action and the moment his feet touch the gravel and he spots a large Doberman running at him is the tipping point.

He hears the soft crunch of Jev landing behind him, trying to work out what to do. He doesn’t want to shoot a dog but he also really doesn’t want to be disemboweled by one and he’s got about three seconds to make the decision-

“Good boy, down.” Of-fucking-course Jev knows the fucking guard dogs. The Doberman is now happily prancing around him, licking at Jean-Eric’s fingers and growling lightly at Sam from behind the Frenchman’s legs. While Sam is extremely happy not to have to shoot a dog, this is not really reassuring.

“Been here before, then?” They need to get in and find either Alex or the fuel cells. He needs to not worry about what Jev is doing, Sam has to do what he needs to with, without or in spite of Jean-Eric.

“No. I like dogs.” Sam knows that’s true, also that Jev’s mastery of manipulation extending to slavering guard dogs wouldn’t be entirely out of character. Urgh, stop thinking - he sets off again towards the factory, since standing still in a yard is surely the absolute dumbest thing he could be doing right now.

Jean-Eric keeps pace with him, dog alongside, “Also this one is from Bahrain, I let the dogs go.”

Sam can’t stop himself sighing, “You’d be a lot better at being a villain if you didn’t have these flashes of ethics.”

He breaks the window with the butt of a rifle because subtlety is for less busy people and he’s just heard some crashes that say Alex is definitely upstairs; showtime.

Jean-Eric says “Sentimentality, not ethics” just loud enough for Sam to hear over the gunfire, “Ethics are for people with anxiety.”

Sam snorts, stepping over two dispatched Liberty agents, “You are walking anxiety.”

“I am not - there are at least two sets of people trying to kill me and do I look worried? _Non_.” Jean-Eric casually punches a nearby Liberty agent, something crunching horribly and Sam tries not be impressed, as the unarmed Frenchman ducks behind a bulkhead. “You, on the other hand, are paranoid.”

“Paranoid _how?_ ” Sam empties another clip into the room, satisfied to note he hits nothing other than what he’s trying to.

“You are-” Jean-Eric pauses duck back from a shot “-already imagining all the ways this will go wrong.”

Sam snakes forward to the next shelter point, fires off a few cover shots, “That’s not paranoia, that’s planning. That’s why no one is trying to kill me.”

“We are being shot at right now.” Jean-Eric emphasises the point by bundling into Sam’s shelter, pressed up much too close against him. Sam tries to ignore the urge to full-body shiver, feeling the rise and fall of Jev’s chest against his shoulders, the steady beat of his heart, as even as Sam’s own as though Jean-Eric trusts Sam’s skills like they’re his own, despite being virtually defenseless, in custody and under fire.

Sam fires off the last of his round, hearing rather than seeing them hit their marks as Jean-Eric’s hand finds his hip and he decides he’s had enough of the likelihood Jev is charmingly pickpocketing him, somehow.

“That’s different, you know what I mean.” And actually he thinks they’ve got rid of everyone in their immediate vicinity, although it sounds like Alex is still crashing around upstairs. “Come on, help me find this thing.”

“It’s not a _thing_ it’s a graphene lattice energy store-”

“And it’s not here.” Alex clatters down a set of stairs, panting slightly and with a few worrying-looking wet patches on the black of his special ops suit. “They knew we were coming, they’re tracking us somehow.”

Alex is pointedly glaring at Jev, which is a fair point. Sam closes his eyes and curses his own weaknesses, “Jev, please don’t fucking say you’re wearing a wire.”

Jean-Eric laughs, because he is awful, “Any excuse to strip-search me, no? And no, I am not. Why would I want them here?”

Sam’s slightly inclined to believe him, even though believing Jean-Eric about anything is really stupid, because Jev swears quietly and kicks the nearest battery bank, which is not something that a brogue-insulated toe is likely to take well. “Aaah, I thought that this would solve some problems, you know.”

Sam hums quietly, looks at his phone. Then he looks at his phone again. Then he smashes his phone with a fortnight’s worth of frustration, beating the _fucking_ thing into pieces against the metal counter, shattering glass and chips across the former Liberty agents strewn around the floor because of _course,_ fucking _Andre._ Why does everything always go so fucking wrong?

There are sirens outside, the local police. Sam wipes his hand down, drops the phone remains. “Alright geniuses, I’m done fixing this - how do we get out of here?”

Jev turns to Alex, who looks like he might be a bit glassy-eyed injured, like he’s not wholly following the conversation while he tries not to fall over now he’s delivered his message. God, rookies - Sam _told_ him not to do anything he wouldn’t do, he _never_ bleeds out during escapes.

“Jean-Eric?” Jev catches Alex when he stumbles forward, looks at Sam with a slight air of panic, “Think we might need something fast, any ideas?”

“The ferry - I’ll carry him.”

They don’t speak on the drive, Jev in the backseat half-cradling Alex as he applies pressure to the younger agent’s shoulder. If it’s an act to make Sam trust him, it’s a good one - but then Jean-Eric’s always are.

\------

**17:27 16 December 2013**

**Faenza, Italy**

They leave Jev outside this time because someone actually should stand guard and the Frenchman might be able to draw the whole facility as a map from memory but he keeps twitching every time they say the word Faenza so Sam suspects he might be less than useless inside. And he and Alex don’t separate because this is fucking _horrible._

He’s not sure if it’s WEC or Liberty or _who_ now but this has gone on long enough, they need to find the fucking prototype and get home for Christmas. And not be dead, which he’s a little bit worried has been a recurring risk here and that’s business as usual but this is giving him the _creeps._

The prototype should be in the fifth basement, ready for transportation. They’ve got no time to plan anything, they’ve got to dive straight in and grab it somehow. Oh _god_ why are WEC here? Well, he hopes not actually _here_ here but ‘in roughly the same area of Italy’ is plenty bad enough. It’s ruddy Christmas, why can’t everyone just get along?

\------

**17:05 16 December 2013**

**Kempten, Germany**

Daniel is quite drunk. But at least he knows what time it is, now.

“So you scraped the data from PornHub? I would have never thought of that.” Now they’re onto the second bottle of champagne this Lucas dude is much more fun, grinning and handing the laptop he’s been messing with code on over to Daniel.

“Yeah, yeah man - you know we have like, totally unlocked internet access right? You guys have that?” The dude nods, pouring more fizz, “So I just set it to run in the background for two days - PornHub, XHamster - the fuckin’ _nasty_ shit is on there and like, fed it all the top rated erotic novels on Kindle, trained it to pretend to type at a human speed, you know. It’s easy shit, can’t believe no one’s made one for money.”

Lucas looks _extremely_ interested in that, “Of course, it’s a huge business.”

“I know right? Anyway, so I set up a fake Tinder and tested it on Mitch and he had no idea, was like ‘ _dude you will not believe how filthy this guy I’m texting is’_ so I was like, yeah, mission accomplished.” Daniel feels himself grinning. “So what do you do, anyway? You’re a nerd, right? Like me and Mitch.”

Lucas wrinkles his nose at that, “I’m an off-scene technical espionage specialist.”

Daniel can’t stop the laugh, champagne making him giggly, “Right, right. A nerd.”

The guy smiles like he’s pleased to share something with Daniel, even if he doesn’t care for the word, “Ok fine, yes. A nerd.”

“So you like, feed the field guys all the data and shit? Do your lot ever even act grateful or just like” - Daniel attempts an extremely inaccurate but message-conveying impersonation of Sam - “ _‘Alright guv’nor great effort once again proper British spying wins the day with our grand old fieldwork we did entirely on our own, like the Empire wot wot, tally ho!’”_

Lucas laughs, “They are more like ‘ _Mmm, another precision-engineered German operation perfectly executed’_ but yes, pretty much. You can’t expect much from people who get concussed that frequently”

They clink glasses, “What are yours up to at the minute? Mine’s been off for ages, absolutely no idea what he’s doing and I don’t think he does either, I just get random phone photos of-“

“Oh _god,_ why do they think that’s an ok way to send anything?” Lucas actually facepalms.

“I _know,_ I know. Especially when it’s their shitty spy handwriting on a napkin or something, like they don’t know how touch keyboards work - you give them all the tech in the world, a whole analytics suite in their wristwatch and they’re like ‘ _not now, can’t do my own maths, demand the nerds do it while booking me a flight and subtly blowing up the trail of my evidence.’”_ Daniel rolls his eyes, takes another drink. This is… this is quite fun, for a kidnapping. Maybe this is why the field agents do it? For the champagne.

“Yeah, right? Mine went off to Berlin and then North Africa, with absolutely no explanation - you’d think they might not force you to spy on them to work out what they’re up to but nooo” - Lucas’ hand is really quite unsteady, pouring more champagne - “And now _apparently_ he’s in Italy waiting to ambush some of your lot and the Liberty traitor.”

Daniel tries to focus for a minute because that seems important. He looks at the laptop and thinks fast, because he is a nerd and that is his job. “You know, I could make this message yours.”

Lucas laughs, “God, that actually would be funny - can you make it obviously from GP2?”

“Sure.” Daniel sets Sam’s number as the sender, figures he will be forgiven for this.

“God, what would Andre be into? Oh, you know what, let it work it out, if he replies.” Lucas drains the last of his champagne and goes in search of another bottle, back turned long enough for Daniel to send the message with a tracer and a re-routed copy. Please, please, please let Mitch work out what it means.

_Hey sauerkraut, been thinking about the last time you roughed me up - ready for another go?_

Lucas splutters, reading it as he sits back down, “Oh my god, that’s _disgusting,_ excellent.”

——

**17:51 December 13 2013**

**The mid-Mediterranean**

Alex comes to, feeling exhausted and extremely thirsty, to the sound of Jean-Eric and Sam bickering. He has a very dim memory of being picked up by the Frenchman, which is the sort of thing he’s getting properly fed up of waking up to.

He sits up, growls when his right shoulder explodes in pain and lies back down, trying not to whine too much but unavoidably getting their attention. “Hey - don’t try to move dude, you nearly bled out in the car.”

Oh yes, he kind of remembers that actually. Jean-Eric had been stroking his hair and he’d been trying to text Mitch but Jev kept taking his phone away and telling him to stop moving so he could apply the pressure properly. Getting shot _sucks,_ god.

“Urgh” is all he can croak out, before Sam is _mothering_ him and bringing him water mixed with the rehydration powders they get given that honestly taste evil but are probably a good idea.

“An excuse for steak,” murmurs Jean-Eric, who is shirtless and slightly blood-smeared - his blood, Alex realises, noticing how shattered the other two look. They’re in a small, softly lit room, Alex lying on a bunk while the other two crowd into a corridor-width of space between the edge of the bed and the wall.

Sam perks up at the suggestion of food, from where he’s checking Alex’s dressing. “The restaurant’s good on here, isn’t it? Shit, we should wash.”

Everyone seems to be a bit bloodied. Also, there is a strange rocking sensation that Alex feels like he should mention. “Is the room moving for anyone else?”

Jean-Eric guffaws at that, which is an unnerving noise, “It is a boat, so yes. We are going to Genoa.”

“Got a bit hot in Tangiers after you passed out, mate.” Sam smiles at him, “Are you ok to get dressed? I need to go and make myself look like I haven’t been in a gunfight recently.”

Alex tries sitting up, only feels slightly sick with pain. Ok, yeah, that’ll do - he is a spy, after all. “Yeah, yeah, sure - is there any more water?”

Jean-Eric passes him a bottle of sparkling, which is the kind of disgusting thing Jev _would_ do but Alex is quite capable of choking it down to save face. “ _Merci._ ”

Jev laughs at him and Alex decides it’s ok to go back to hating the bastard, even if he was partially involved in saving his life - he’s sure Sam could have managed on his own if he’d really wanted to and it was probably somehow Jev’s fault anyway. He hasn’t liked a second since they picked the triple-crossing git up and he’s not going to start now just because Jean-Eric’s abs are conjuring some very vivid memories.

Sam hands him his phone, “I think your, err, technical operative might be trying to get hold of you.”

Alex tries not to blush - god, look, it’s much more common than you think, alright? And Mitch is like the Jean-Eric of GP2, he gets everyone and it’s just that Alex got him. And he’s really sorry for worrying him and desperately wants to hear his stupid Kiwi accent. “I’ll give him a call, go wash or whatever.”

Sam nods, a knowing look on his face when he briefly meets Alex’s eyes before turning away and giving Jean-Eric a shove, “Right, come on, shower.”

“What, together?” Jean-Eric is being flirtatious and it massively grinds Alex’s gears.

“I’m not taking my fucking eyes off you.” Sam gives the Frenchman another shove, Jev looking somewhat surprised to be called on his own suggestion.

“I… knew it, you still cannot resist me” Jev manages to mumble as he’s bundled out of the door, leaving Alex in relative peace. Another door to the right opens and closes and he realises they must have next-door cabins, which is weirdly reassuring but he’s also glad to be alone, grabbing at a pillow and stuffing it against his own face to get the crying out of the way before he calls Mitch.

He hears running water, a brief argument about shampoo and then, mercifully, nothing. Which gives him the three minutes of panicked sobbing he lets himself have before he gets a grip and dials a number not saved in his work phone.

 _“You’re an asshole, I’ve been fucking_ dying _are you ok?”_ Is the instant, almost-hissed greeting.

“I think it was me that was dying, I miss you too.” There’s a thud from next door that makes him jump slightly but doesn’t seem to be anything more sinister than, he hopes, Jean-Eric falling over on the soap or something.

“ _Oh god, Ace. Don’t get shot.”_ Alex can’t help laughing grimly at that - always with the best strategic analysis, Mitch.

“I’m trying not to.” He mumbles it into the phone, realising how incredibly thin the walls actually are as he hears Sam very audibly say something about Jean-Eric being a fucking nightmare, which is a sentiment he can get behind.

 _“I mean it.”_ Mitch sounds a bit choked up, the sentimental little git. They stay quiet on the line to each other for a moment, neither quite stupid enough to directly admit it because there’s no way there isn’t _someone_ listening to this call, no matter how much they’ve tried to keep it personal.

“Do you know where the… graphene thingy… is?” Better take it back to the professional. He’d like a lot of things other than that, right now but well: spies.

A muffled “my _god,_ why are you like this” drifts through the wall and Alex resists the urge to snort, imagining the probably fairly ridiculous scene next door as he feels himself come back to life a bit, listening to Mitch’s voice get less shaky and insistent and more into his confident, bolshy self as he explains a facility near Modena and some energy spikes he’s been tracing.

Just hearing Mitch makes him feel better, less like he might have been slipping away, bleeding out on Jean-Eric’s lap. He finds clean clothes draped over the chair, letting Mitch’s ramble wash over him as he fixes cufflinks and manages to get his trousers on without too much hissing in pain. The jacket is a bit of a dead loss and he’s doing nothing with a tie but surely cruises (or whatever they’re on - the wallpaper looks quite opulent) are fairly casual affairs?

By the time he hears “ _Jev, I swear, if you do that again I am going to cable-tie you to the fucking cistern_ ” through the wall, he’s laughing at an anecdote from Mitch about something to do with Daniel and a sex robot and so incredibly ready for steak.

\------

**18:14 16 December 2013**

**Andre’s private plane, European airspace**

This is disgusting. If he keeps thinking it’s disgusting then he might not think about how _fucked_ it is and then there’s a chance he might come up with a way to get out of it.

There’s a scarf between his teeth, which is the first thing to sort out. It takes quite a lot of tongue and some uncomfortable jaw maneuvers but Andre clearly hasn’t considered just _how_ adept Jev is at dealing with things in his mouth. He spits a few times, to get rid of some fluff and also in distaste at the German’s decor, before speaking.

“Only you would have leopard print seats, it’s fucking _vile._ ” He doesn’t get an immediate response, so wriggles round, cable ties digging painfully into his wrists, to kick one of the offensive chairs.

“I am _certain_ you wear leopard print underwear while you’re fucking your way into secrets to sell.” The German’s drawl is relaxed, which is probably an act because even if Jean-Eric is tied up, there’s no way you feel chill being in a biplane with an enemy, especially not one who knows you but it’s still _fucking_ annoying.

“Well, you wouldn’t know.” Jean-Eric kicks the seat again, just for the hell of it.

Andre chuckles, “No, you have your little GP2 friend for that, don’t you? Very sweet. Are you thinking of defecting? Do you think he’s going to sweep you up in his arms and keep you away from all the nasty, trying-to-kill-you people?”

Jev swallows and kicks the seat again, harder. He knows Andre’s just playing with him but he’s also glad the German can’t see the slight blush he feels burning his cheekbones - yes, alright, it was kind of nice when Sam shot someone trying to kill him, not many people do that sort of thing for him. But it’s not a romantic gesture - or shouldn’t be - and he knows Sam isn’t going to save him now.

“He probably hates you, anyway - I made it clear it was your fault they got ambushed. You can’t switch sides every other week and keep all these _special friends,_ you know.” Andre looks round at him from the front of the plane and Jev makes sure he is glaring extra hard. “Oh, I don’t blame you; you remember Rossiter, yes?”

Jev nods - and yeah, he knew about this but it’s an interesting admission. Andre doesn’t continue, leaving it annoyingly hanging but it’s _something_ to save for later. And a distraction from the thought that, yes, Sam probably is going to try to kill Jean-Eric if he ever sees him again, which given he’s probably going to be shot in some WEC basement is fairly unlikely anyway.

He can’t stop the melodramatic thought that at least Sam won’t miss him. He doesn’t actually think Sam would miss him anyway, Jev has generally caused him quite a lot of trouble but it’s sort of nice to pretend that Sam would come and rescue him otherwise.

Jean-Eric has read about this - when spies know they’re doomed, sentimental tactics to self-insulate. He hasn’t got anyone to betray, anymore, so he’s not worried about them trying to get anything out of him; an interrogation would give him some opportunity to bargain but he doesn’t think that’s on the cards.

“You’ve gone quiet, you’re not pining over him are you?” Andre laughs, which is obnoxious enough to merit another vicious seat kick before he rolls over to release the cable-tie pressure on his wrists. _Ugh._

“I am grieving that my last flight is with a man with the taste of an 80s porn star.” Jean-Eric presses himself against the wall of the plane. Because it is sensible to have your back against something, _not_ for the comfort, definitely.

\------

**19:00 December 13 2013**

**Dining hall of the Excellent, mid-Mediterranean**

Sam tries to stop himself fussing Alex because it looks ridiculous - three guys in smart suits and two of them are fretting over the other one, when they should obviously be enjoying the opulence. He orders a double portion of bearnaise sauce with his steak, though, because Alex needs the calories to make up for all the blood loss and he’s too much of a rookie to not be trying to stick to a diet.

Jean-Eric’s hand has found his knee under the table, while they’re waiting. Alex is engrossed in his phone, one-handedly tapping at it on the table and Sam can _guess_ who he’s talking to - he’s never seen quite so many missed calls from a technical operator to a field agent.

The Med looks relatively calm, in the dark outside and Sam tries not to think about drowned refugees - or the Concordia, he’s not a huge fan of boats. When the waiter arrives with the wine he’s totally lost himself in his own thoughts, only jolted by Alex asking for water and a coffee, instead.

Jean-Eric looks slightly askance at the younger agent and Sam kicks him - just because Bordeaux _looks_ like blood doesn’t mean it’s actually the solution to nearly dying. Alex segues back into looking at his phone and Sam desperately hopes he’s going to stay awake for the rest of the meal, low lamp-light tempting his eyelids before he’s even started on the wine and food.

“Santé,” Jean-Eric clinks his glass and Sam mumbles _‘cheers’_ back, feeling monumentally awkward in front of Alex. God’s sake, Jev dumped the guy in a bin less than a month ago and now Sam’s _holding hands with him_ which he really hopes Alex can’t see and he will claim to everyone, including himself, is entirely a security measure to prevent Jean-Eric clocking them both with the jug of water and running off.

Alex sighs heavily, looks up from his phone at Jev, “Why do you do it?”

Jean-Eric does his annoying, knowing, amused smile and waits until the moment their steaks arrive to murmur, “Do what?”

Alex rolls his eyes, which is impressive given he’d seemed pretty nervous about Jean-Eric _before_ the guy saved his life, “Messing everyone around, dumping people in bins - sorry, I didn’t order Bearnaise.”

“Yes you did.” Sam interjects by pouring it all over Alex’s lean steak, to a scandalised expression from the younger agent, “Dude, you need it.”

Jean-Eric snorts, “ _Dude?”_

When Sam looks across, he has to remember that Jev is a captive enemy agent and not someone he should be thinking looks affectionately delighted, features softened with amusement.

“Shut up - look, answer my question.” Alex looks steely with resolve, even if he has to let Sam cut his steak up for him because his shoulder is a mess still.

Jev considers Alex for a moment, before looking out through the dark window to answer, the seas seeming to get slightly rougher for dramatic effect in the way everything seems to conspire to suit Jean-Eric sometimes. “I don’t know, why do you do things? I guess because it was right, sometimes - because it was work, other times. Often because it was there or because I needed to. Sometimes just because it was fun. Or too tempting.”

Jean-Eric looks at him during that last sentence and there’s something pleading there. Oh god, Sam would very much like to believe there’s anything genuine in the expression but experience tells him there probably isn’t.

He passes Alex’s plate back, steak carefully dissected, to distract himself. When he looks back, Jean-Eric has leaned back into the swollen green leather of the booth’s cushioning, glass of wine in hand, “The last few years the main reason has been to live, you know. It’s not meaningful.”

Sam reminds himself that Jev is an expert wordsmith, that he is playing him, that Alex’s look of cynical consternation is the correct response.

“Right, so you’re a liar just for the hell of it.” Alex’s ears are burning pink.

Jev looks hurt, “I saved your life.”

Alex colours, looks down at the food. “Thanks for that - you did try to kill me that other time, so let’s call it even.”

Jean-Eric looks like he’s about to protest that he wasn’t trying to kill Alex but Sam shushes him, “This steak is too good for this conversation.”

He realises he’s got his hand on Jean-Eric’s arm, palm curved around his bicep, fingertips running over the fine stitching of a suit he doesn’t want to know the origin of, when Alex looks a little softer for a second, then turns back to his phone. It’s really obvious that he’s just typed ‘ _I miss you_ ’ and Sam feels bad for him.

They eat mostly in silence, Alex excusing himself to bed with mumbled thanks and only a little stiffness to his walk as he heads away across the gently rolling carpeted floor. There’s a high wind outside and Sam’s grateful for the warmth of the restaurant, the glow of the bar lights as Jean-Eric orders them cocktails to finish and Sam doesn’t bother to protest the old fashioned pressed into his hand.

He feels weirdly out of sorts and tries to remember when he last slept. Was it even in Morocco?

Jean-Eric holds his hand on the way back to their cabin - Sam is _not_ stupid enough to let him have his own - checking on Alex to see the younger agent quietly sleeping on his back, phone still in his hand, clasped over the left side of his chest. Christ, that’s so cute it’s almost sickening.

Jean-Eric is waiting quietly, half-sitting on the small desk and Sam gives in to what Jev wants because _everyone_ always gives in, eventually. They kiss with Jean-Eric pressed against the wall, fierce and hot and all wrong.

“Stop kissing me like a mark.” Sam’s surprised how hoarse he sounds.

They haven’t switched the light on and Jean-Eric looks eerily beautiful, face and hair highlighted by the tiny dusk of moonlight that the porthole lets in. He shrugs ruefully at Sam, “I don’t know any other way.”

It’s a play, it’s a play, of _course_ it’s a fucking play but Sam sinks to it, drags Jean-Eric over to the bunk, pushes him down and climbs on top of him, “Yes you do.”

Jev makes a choked noise when Sam kisses him again and he thinks he ought to be pinning Jean-Eric down, not letting him grab at him, stroke down Sam’s collar and slide his fingers between the buttons of his shirt to tease at skin.

Sam kisses him slowly and Jean-Eric kisses back, lips sliding over Sam’s jaw and pressing their faces together, nuzzling in between slow, sensual contact that makes them both moan. Jean-Eric whispers something that sounds like ‘ _please’_ and Sam shuts him up with his mouth because for fuck’s sake Jev, you can’t do that to a man.

For a second, he forgets that Jean-Eric is an enemy combatant. He thinks Jean-Eric might have forgotten as well until the Frenchman theatrically moans, arches his back to make the bed springs groan.

Sam swats at him “Don’t you dare wake Alex up.”

Jev grins slightly ferally, grabs at Sam and moans again, when their mouths collide. For fuck’s sake, Jean-Eric, this is why they can’t have nice things.

Sam gets up, cuffing Jev to the bed with the restraint he’d hidden under the pillow in the same movement, goes to sit against the desk, as Jean-Eric had been earlier and tries to will his hair to look less disarrayed, for the flush to go out of his face. “Fuck’s sake, why are you like this?”

“No- no.” Jev yanks at the cuff, “Fuck, Sam - please.”

“I can’t trust you. How the fuck am I supposed to get in bed with you?” Sam digs the heel of his palm into the bridge of his nose. God, he is so tired. Of everything.

Jean-Eric looks like he is holding his breath without realising it, not breathing while he’s quietly looking at Sam with a strange, neutral expression that Sam thinks might be his _actual_ thinking face.

“Don’t make me say it.” It’s the first plea that sounds like it might be genuine. Sam has been on the receiving end of so very much of Jean-Eric’s shit and this, that he doesn’t want to be forced to tell the truth, sounds genuine.

Well, they are spies. Sam sighs, strips his own jacket and shirt off, half-undresses Jean-Eric before he has to undo the cuff to get his jacket off, undoing Jev’s tie while looking him in the eyes and trying to convey how much Sam is straight-up _begging_ him not to be a dick about this for once.

Once they’re down to their underwear, Sam wrestles the cover out from under Jev, tussling a little and kissing softly a few times as their limbs tangle, suddenly under the intimacy of the duvet. He lies on his side, snakes an arm under Jean-Eric’s neck and pulls the Frenchman to him, other arm around his slim waist, nose buried in the soft hair at the nape of Jev’s neck.

If anyone ever asked, he would absolutely say it was because he needed to keep the bastard in one place and not because Jean-Eric’s hand met Sam’s over his stomach, interlaced their fingers as Jev relaxed into him, that they fall asleep like that and Sam wakes up clutching Jean-Eric to him, breath hot against his skin.

\------

**17:29 16 December 2013**

**Faenza, Italy**

Sam goes in first, Alex following. This feels bad, somehow - maybe he’s just getting nervous after the whole shooting thing last time and because Jean-Eric seems spooked as hell.

Alex does not trust Jev, still. He especially doesn’t trust that he’s pretty sure they fucked on the ferry, Sam somehow protective of Jean-Eric where he had been critical before and Alex keeps catching them touching. When Jean-Eric had jacked the car they’d made the three-hour drive in, Sam handing him a set of lock picks and ruefully admitting Jev had always been better at this shit than him, their fingers lingering on the exchange. When Sam was tooling up for this, Jev helping fasten harness clips behind Sam’s waist and just briefly pressing his face into the blonde scruff of Sam’s hair.

Alex had insisted Jean-Eric was in the back seat, sitting on the passenger side and trying to keep the Frenchman in his peripherary without leaning too much on his shoulder. He didn’t miss when Jev leant forward to find something in the footwell, snaked a hand forward to Sam’s lap, around the seat and Sam took a hand off the wheel for a second to squeeze Jean-Eric’s fingers.

Alex feels like he should mention it. But also knows Sam probably saw 198 unmissed calls on his work phone and 75 on his non-work phone and knows that Mitch has his heartbeat on record and it’s only natural that your technical operator feels concern for the field operative but there’s varying levels of that.

On the other hand: Mitch is not an enemy combatant who recently drugged one of Alex’s colleagues and has a reputation as a traitor. A persistent thought makes him feel like he has to add ‘then saved said colleague’s life’ but he begrudges his own brain for it.

Right, he should stop thinking about things that increase his heart rate. There’s a fight to be had. They just need to get in, steal the prototypes, blow the place up, drive really fast away from it - absolutely textbook spy stuff. Exactly the sort of thing he got into this to do.

He’d always imagined he’d be shitting himself less but maybe the trick is to just not look like you are. Sam slides a catch on the window and they slip through, landing silently on the echo-y concrete floor. The place seems vast and suspiciously abandoned, for a supposedly active facility.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. Which is weird because he definitely set it not to do that - random bodily sensations are extremely distracting. He signals at Sam to stop for a second, where they’re creeping across the warehouse floor, so he can at least turn it off.

It’s a message from Mitch -

_Fucking use your fucking headset you useless bastard_

_WEC are coming, it’s an ambush_

_Get out, Alex - please_

Shit. He fires back a quick acknowledgement, touches Sam’s arm and turns the screen to him, sees the other agent go through the same process of ‘ _it felt wrong, I knew it’_ he just has as they stand there, briefly frozen between the decision to escape or the choice to get the prototype.

Finally, Sam shakes his head, mutters “Shit, Jev” and sets off running back to the open window. Fuck, that’s probably why WEC are after them - Alex fucking _knew_ it, that bastard.

Sam shoots as they jump the perimeter wall, gunning down a guy running at Jean-Eric at the same time as the Frenchman disappears, collapsing behind the car. Alex can’t work out what’s going on for a second, his ears full of Sam howling “No!”

His colleague is running for Jean-Eric - fuck, did Sam hit Jev by accident? Surely not, he’s a better shot than that and anyway Sam doesn’t make it to the car before someone tall, silver-haired and German-accented does.

“You are quite the dirty agent.” The guy’s older, wearing sunglasses even though it’s the pitch dark of near-Solstice. He’s also kneeling, going through Jean-Eric’s pockets, where their… sort-of ally or whatever is slumped on the ground. “He’s not dead, don’t look so pathetic - it’s just a stun dart. I’ll kill him later.”

“What? What the fuck, Andre?” Sam looks livid, casting round as WEC agents appear from the shadows, guns pointed at them. Alex tries not to look too gormless, given he’s pretty sure he’s about to be riddled with bullets.

“Well, he might still be useful - he gave us you.” Andre or whatever chuckles, pulls a USB stick Alex has never seen before out of Jev’s clothes “He’s virtually useless as an agent, of course - but so very _consistent_ at betrayal.”

Sam is shaking with rage, grip on his gun white-knuckled where he’s pointing it at Andre. “You’re a fucker.”

“Mmm, I didn’t see you complaining about that earlier.” Andre laughs again and Sam looks confused for a second. Before Alex’s phone beeps quietly, a pinging noise it’s never made before and gunfire erupts through the trees, Alex diving for cover behind the car, wrestling Sam down with him as GP2 agents shoot it out with the WEC goons behind them.

——

**??:?? 17 December 2013**

**Somewhere performatively forbidding, the German Alps**

Jean-Eric is a little worried he may have run out of bad ideas. Tied to a chair, which is irritatingly riveted to the floor so he can’t use any of his usual handy tricks for getting out of this sort of thing, he’s in pain and can’t really see. This is not good.

Andre hadn’t taken him to Kempten, the usual hideout for WEC, he’s in some Alpine lair the biplane could barely land on the packed snow around.

Andre is also not here, having abandoned him several hours ago. If he’s going to die, he was hoping it wouldn’t be some horrible, slow dehydration process, alone in a dimly lit cell but maybe that’s what they’re going for.

He’s trying not to imagine he’ll get rescued somehow and focus on anything he can do himself but Jean-Eric ran out of concepts for that fairly early on. He can’t really move his arms or legs and some GP2 agent punched him just before everything kicked off, so it’s a little difficult to see out of his left eye. And there’s nothing near him and no one to manipulate, so it’s not that he’s not even got any non-terrible ideas, it’s that he literally has none.

Jev would kind of like this to not be happening, really. He tried sleeping, earlier, on the basis it might help if anything actually did come up but the way he’s tied up makes it harder than in a budget airline seat. Also: he’s bored, which is the most torturously fractious mood for a spy.

He’s pretty sure Andre won’t be able to resist coming and gloating a bit, the German had taken great joy in letting him know there was a price on his head from GP2 now, that no one was going to come find him. Surely, any moment now.

\-----

**07:03 19 December 2013**

**Hammersmith, London**

Early morning debriefs are the worst. Mitch is exhausted and as great as it is to be in the same room as Alex, he doesn’t think Ace is going to like what he’s about to tell him. And Mitch really isn’t a fan of the way Alex’s arm is bandaged.

He feels like he’s in trouble with Filippi, too, which is unfair because he totally saved everyone’s ass and he had to do it on his own after Alex nearly fucking died a few days previously and it’s not easy to scramble a rescue squad in the middle of Italy in mid-December, when everyone’s trying to sneak off on annual leave and you’ve only got about four minutes to do it.

“So you found the WEC ambush because you were sexting Daniel? I don’t understand.” Luca looks over the top of a pair of reading glasses at him, “No, I really don’t understand - it’s good work but what the fuck were you doing? And where is Daniel?”

Mitch closes his eyes, tries not to squirm - he’s a nerd, he’s not supposed to have to do these bits. “Kempten.”

Luca takes off the reading glasses, leans forward, “What?”

Time to be, kind of, a hero. “Daniel’s in Kempten, he got kidnapped by WEC. But not, like, big WEC, one of their nerds - because he built an AI and he’s been sending me coded messages.”

Sam has his head on the table, “I wondered why he’d gone so quiet.”

“Shut up - listen, I’ve traced Andre, it’s how I found you, I know where he took Jev.” Mitch presses a few buttons, pulls maps up on the screen embedded into the steel of the table, “They’re in southern Germany.”

“So?” Alex looks as angry as Mitch was worried he might be about this. “Who gives a fuck? Where are the prototypes? Fuck Jev.”

Mitch tries not to shudder because he feels like this whole thing might be a series of mistakes on his part, somehow, “Andre has them. He took them before you even got there - and Jev knows how to use them because he read the data from Paris.”

Alex grunts, looking more and more displeased, “Fuck.”

Luca stares at the ceiling for a long pause, clearly strategising. “You definitely have the location of the prototypes?”

Mitch nods, points on the map - “Up in the high Alps, near Untersberg. But they’re with Andre, so that won’t be easy.”

“I can deal with fuckin’ Andre” Sam’s voice has an edge to it that isn’t always there, his chair scraping as he stands up, “I’m packing the car, send anything else to my phone.”

“Sam-” Luca also stands up, sounding commanding enough to make Sam pause, “don’t do this for the wrong reasons.”

Sam’s shoulders slump for a second, “I know.” He sighs, opening the door - “It’s not meaningful. I’m taking the 488, Mitch can you keep me up to date if Daniel’s gone?”

Mitch nods, can see Alex wrestling with himself about what he ought to be doing as Sam disappears through the door. “Someone needs to rescue Daniel.”

Luca sighs and looks rueful, “I’m sorry - if we’ve got someone in WEC who can get messages out, that might be the best shot we’ve got. Them and Liberty have been one step ahead this whole time.”

“What?” Mitch can’t help himself. “He’s captured - he doesn’t know what to do, we can’t _leave him there._ ”

Luca shakes his head, “I’m sorry, Mitch. I’ll see who we can pull in but Daniel stays there, for now. He’s an agent, it’s a strategic advantage.”

“You wouldn’t have known about Faenza, otherwise.” Alex looks gentler than he has for the whole meeting, nudging the toe of Mitch’s shoe with his own, under the table. “I’ll help Sam.”

“Absolutely not- you’re injured. You’re helping Mitch.” Luca looks like he’s about to sit down again, then doesn’t, “Ok, this is going to be close - you’re going to have to outthink them, stay in touch with Daniel and get Sam as much as you can.”

Ace is glaring, “I don’t know how to do the nerd stuff.”

Luca sighs again, chivvying them out of the room, “It’s sitting in a basement reading erotic messages, not rocket science.”

Mitch huffs, “Actually I used those messages to target the missile drop, it’s not all wanking in basements you know.”

Luca snorts at him and walks off, with the expression of a man who is likely to be being bollocked by someone mysterious and higher up in the extremely near future. Left in the corridor with Alex, Mitch makes some difficult decisions.

“Ok, I’m going to show you how everything works - you don’t need to build anything, we’ve got all the systems and I’ll be able to tell you which to use.” Mitch pats his arm, stands closer, “I added you to the iris scan for the basement door ages ago and your phone will let you into my computer.”

Alex looks as confused as Mitch feared he was going to be “Ok but you’re going to be there, surely?”

Mitch takes a sharp breath, “I’m going to Germany.”

Alex’s brow furrows, his hands coming up to Mitch’s shoulders, “No you’re not, Sam’s going.”

He swallows, tries to work out if he is actually brave enough to do this, “I’m going too. I’m going to get Daniel.”

Alex grimaces, “He needs to stay in Kempten, Mitch - you heard Luca.”

“No.” Mitch shakes his head, steps closer to Ace and wraps his arms around his waist, resting his head on Alex’s shoulder. “I’m getting him back. Then I’m coming home and you better have sorted out Christmas dinner.”

Alex sighs, his uninjured arm going around Mitch’s back, “You’re really stupid.”

Mitch tries to squeeze him in a way that won’t press anywhere wounded, “I’ll sext you, obviously.”

\-----

**17:17  December 19 2013**

**Just outside Frankfurt, Germany**

Driving straight through was a mistake. He’s cold, which is a definite sign of exhaustion given the 488 has perfectly good heating, regardless of the snow on the ground when he gets out for a piss in a hedgerow.

Sam is trying not to overthink things - he needs to get the prototypes, maybe kill Andre, maybe find Jean-Eric if he isn’t dead or hasn’t betrayed them. He doesn’t _want_ to kill Jev, really but if he’s used the stolen data, if he’s working with Andre, Sam might have to.

He’s pretty sure Jev’s not but it’s only instinct. And his feelings around Jean-Eric are all compromised anyway - one night sleeping in Sam’s arms doesn’t mean Jev’s been reformed, it just means Sam’s gone mad. Luca was right about it being a bad idea to do this all fucked up but it’s not like he has a brain-wipe option.

As he walks back around the car to get in the driver’s side, there’s a weird thunk from the boot. Which is exactly the sort of thing he’d dearly love to be able to ignore. Fuck, what the hell now?

He pulls a gun, one of three he has on him, as he opens the catch. A wild, weird bit of him, for a second, hopes it’s Jev - he’s not expecting, although maybe should have been, spiky brown hair.

“Alex, what the fu-” he pauses, reevaluates, “Mitch?”

The younger agent looks sheepish and defiant, at the same time, “Sorry - I needed to get to Germany, I’m going to rescue Daniel.”

Sam can’t resist touching his phone, through the dark fabric of his combat suit, “So who’s sending me data?”

Mitch flushes, sitting up in the boot and stretching his legs - the Ferrari’s not exactly designed for cargo, it’s a good job Evans is short. “Alex. It’s ok I’m telling him what to do.”

Sam ought to report him, ought to phone Filippi now and get Mitch fired, ought to put him on the next plane back to the UK or knock him out or something. “Do you want a comfier seat?”

The younger agent laughs softly, “That’d be good actually, yeah. This is nice and all, reminds me of the basement but I’ve never seen the Alps in winter.”

Sam watches Mitch carefully out of the corner of his eye as he settles in the passenger seat, buckling up and plugging his phone into the in-car charger. He’s wearing a slightly ill-fitting version of Sam’s combat suit, although the harness has much fewer holsters and the ones it does have seem to have random bits of tech in.

Evans isn’t firearms trained, Sam doesn’t think he’s ever been on a field mission of any kind and the dude looks like he goes to the gym but probably doesn’t have any idea how to fight. Great. At least Jean-Eric was sort of useful, for carrying around a deadweight.

But Mitch does have access to a lot of information, that could be really handy. Sam goes back to trying not to overthink things, “We’re going to Untersberg - you’re going to have to help me get the prototypes, if you’re here.”

There’s a quiet, nervous noise from Mitch as Sam starts the car and sets off again, “I can handle Andre - you’re good at tech, right? That’s what the prototypes are.”

Mitch nods without saying anything, engrosses himself in his phone. It’s basically exactly like having Alex, then, except Sam can probably share more clothes with Mitch, in a pinch - although he’s _really_ hoping there’s no need to get naked, no matter how weird this has all got.

\----

**23:11 December 19 2013**

**The Alps above Untersberg, Germany**

Andre’s lair is stupid. WEC’s lair, whatever it is - anywhere you need to take a cable car to is stupid and Sam’s only slightly grateful Mitch is there to break into the electronics while he checks he’s got all his guns for the seventh time. 

In the quiet of the cabin, only the creak of the cable and the rumble as they go over a tower soundtracking the snow-muffled ride, Sam takes stock. He’s got one nerd as back up, an injured field agent running their data, he daren’t tell Luca about either of those things and he’s going into an enemy facility to try to extract things he doesn’t really understand, possibly via finding out his ...whatever Jev is… is dead or a traitor to an even worse degree than he ever has been before.

It’s not like they’ve never _fucked_ before - Sam had discovered Jev about three years into his field career, via the predictable method of somehow being persuaded into playing poker with him and then waking up confused in a bin. And then the next time he’d found himself falling for it again, only sending off all the data and wiping his devices before he woke up in a bed, with a glass of water and some paracetamol on the side-table.

The time Jev left a rose was cheesy as heck and nearly convinced Sam not to be idiot enough to screw him when they ran into each other in Uruguay. Nearly. Jean-Eric hadn’t even drugged him that time and that had been enough to make it a regular thing.

He’d never spooned Jev all night before, however. It was stupid to think that meant something - Jean-Eric’s words, ‘ _It’s not meaningful’_ keep floating round his head - but he hadn’t been looking at Sam when he’d said them. And if he had been, it would have all just been a layer of the act that’s half-real that is Jev, definitely lost in his own mythology at this point.

Sam sighs heavily as the cable car docks. God, he hopes there aren’t loads of nerdy goons, he always feels guilty about shooting the lab technicians.

\-----

 

**23:32 December 19 2013**

**WEC Scientific Facility, The Alps**

Mitch pounds down the corridor, begging with any higher powers listening that Sam can hold off Andre. Where are they, where are they? He’s got no signal and he can’t get in touch with Alex and he desperately does not want to die down here. Why is it _always_ in a basement, for fuck’s sake?

He skids round a corner, reads the code on a door really fast and stops, tries to work out how to get in. It’s heavy and black and has some forbidding turquoise wiring around it, of the type that says it’s pretty heavily electrified. Which means it’s time to get out the special gloves and the insulated wire-cutters.

He traces the circuit, finds the point to break - there’s always a weak spot - and prays very hard that it doesn’t kill him as the cutters dig in. There’s a hissing noise, a release and some sparks at the other side but, mercifully, no colossal electric shock as the door opens.

Peering cautiously into the room, Mitch has never seen Jean-Eric in the flesh before. Although he’s had to deal with him a lot lately, as a strategic asset or threat or both. He guesses Jev doesn’t know who he is, looking genuinely confused from where he’s tied to a chair. This wasn’t really what he expected to find.

He flicks the light switch, trying to work out what to do and not wanting to face Jean-Eric while he’s doing it. The guy is clearly still alive, which surprises Mitch a little bit since he’d assumed Andre would have just done something horrible with him to get the information about the prototypes out and then thrown him in the incinerator or whatever WEC lairs are equipped with. He's definitely got a black eye and doesn't look like he  _hasn't_ been roughed up but decidedly alive and making Mitch have to think about things quite hard very fast.

“Who are you?” Jev sounds a bit hoarse. Mitch doesn’t really know very much about the guy but he definitely gets the impression Sam would like him to be alive - maybe to the extent that Alex would like Mitch to be.

“Mitch.” The prototypes are behind Jev - two complex-looking units and one battery. “I’m with Sam.”

He figures it’s a good idea to say that because he’s going to have to untie Jean-Eric and he very much does not want to fight him - the guy looks skinny but so does Alex and Mitch has seen him sparring with Sam. He doesn’t expect the weird, half-sob noise Jev makes.

“Sam’s here?” It’s almost self-interrogative, like he can’t believe that as a suggestion.

“Err, yeah. We came for the prototypes. Well, Sam was sent for the prototypes, I’m trying to get Daniel back and I think maybe he was really coming for you.” Mitch tries to stop himself babbling, taking the wire cutters to the metal restraints holding Jev to the chair, totally fails, “I don’t know, I mean, he was really fucking angry at Andre and I don’t think it was just the prototypes - none of them really understand what they are, they never pay any attention to emails.”

He clips the last metal tie and tries to stop his heart thudding in his chest, looking up at Jean-Eric nervously. The frenchman just murmurs “Thank you” and stands up, rubbing his wrists and moving stiffly, like he’d been there for awhile.

Mitch tries to distract himself with the prototypes, picks one up - and immediately puts it back down again. Fuck, he’s not going _anywhere_ with that, he’s a pretty fit guy but that weighs, like, a hundred kilograms. What to do.

Jev is watching him, “We can’t get them out. We’re going to need to fight.” Oh shit, _Sam._

“Shit, Sam is fighting Andre.” Jean-Eric swears elaborately in response, looks round the room like he’s hoping it will produce a weapon.

Mitch hands him the gun - it’s not like he’s going to do anything sensible with it - and turns back to the prototypes, starts emptying his pockets. They might not need to _take_ them, so long as they find out what they are and then destroy them.

**\-----**

**23:37 December 19 2013**

**WEC Scientific Facility, The Alps**

Fighting Andre is difficult because although Sam is _really fucking good,_ so is he and this is _his_ lair. And Mitch is fucking god-knows-where.

“I killed him, you know.” Urgh, god - Sam grabs the nearest object, some sort of glass ornament and hits Andre as hard as he can with it, manages to writhe out of the German’s grasp and into a crouch.

“Whatever, Andre. This is why everyone thinks you’re a villain - Alpine lairs, murder, the beard.” Sam tries to dust some of the shards of glass off himself, spitting blood onto the marble floor as Andre gets up again, too. Shit, he’s not sure how much longer he can keep this up and Andre just seems fucking unkillable, somehow.

They’ve fallen down three flights of stairs, through two glass walls and Sam threw him over a desk, collapsed the ceiling on him and it only bought him a few seconds. It can’t have been longer than fifteen minutes and Sam feels like it’s been hours, although at least Andre also looks pretty fucked up now so maybe he can just about hold out until Mitch or Alex comes up with something brilliant.

This is the sort of circumstance Jean-Eric was always so good at, to twist the odds. Sam’s going to miss that fucker so much, if he gets out of here - and fuck Andre for killing him, if anyone had the right to kill Jev it was Sam. Fuck - he hopes Mitch gets the fucking prototype thing because that was  _kind of_ why they're here but Sam probably wouldn't have driven for fourteen hours solidly and then had the shit beaten out of him for a - what had Jev called it -  _graphene lattice_ or whatever.

Christ, he feels terrible. Andre is also seemingly struggling, applying pressure to a wound and casting around for something to presumably try and hit Sam with. He kind of doesn't care, now but 'in the middle of a fight to the death' is a bad time to have a depressive episode and he ought to make sure Mitch gets home to Alex, at least - no need to spoil everyone's Christmas.

He spits some more blood, tries to stop panting and wait for Andre to attack him again. But no, it’s soliloquy time; “It’s not murder, any more than you or I killing each other is murder - it’s the job. You only think that because you _liked_ him, which is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. The only thing he was ever any good at was-”

Sam never gets to find out what the only thing Jean-Eric was ever any good at was, although he has a few good ideas, because there is a colossal explosion from somewhere below them and they’re both flung at the floor as the building shifts, Sam landing on top of Andre and _shit_ this is bad.

He tries to fight but Andre’s too fucking big and has got his arm around Sam’s neck, throttling him too hard to waste oxygen struggling. Sam kicks him hard enough to break a kneecap but the German just grunts and squeezes his throat harder, until things are starting to get dangerously fuzzy around the edges - shit, _shit,_ not like this, surely?

Sam struggles again, kicks Andre and tries to get his hand up to dig his fingers into his eyes or something but everything’s just getting weaker, the panic rising as his body fights for oxygen and he hears himself airlessly gasp, like a fish flailing on the deck of a fishing boat.

There’s another explosion, jolting them and he rolls away - unable to do anything other than kneel on his hands and knees and gasp for air, colour slowly coming back into his eyesight and he’s got to get up, he’s got to find something to kill Andre with - shit, shit, shit.

Sam grabs a gun he knows is empty, where it’s slid across the floor to him and prays he can break Andre’s nose or something. He’s trying to move as competently he can when he’s injured and nearly asphyxiated, not look like it’s bothering him as he turns around, seeing Andre get up in his peripheral vision.

To see Jean-Eric, halo’d by flames, pick up one of the shards of the glass object and slam it into the back of Andre’s head, sending the German crashing to the floor.

**\------**

**00:03 December 20 2013**

**Just outside Marktschellenberg, Austria**

“Why do you drive a Ferrari?” Honestly, Jev is literally the shittest person to rescue ever.

“Because it’s cool? And fast.” _Unlike you,_ Sam nearly adds but actually the fast bit would be a fair accusation in several senses.

“But I thought all British spies had to drive …I don’t know, Aston Martins, like you only got into it because your wife found out you were shagging the secretary and you had to go into mid-life hiding.” Jean-Eric says this while annoyingly tugging at the glovebox with his uninjured hand like he knows it’s where Sam keeps the emergency medical kit. And ok, maybe Sam would prefer him to not die or bleed on the upholstery, after all this bother.

“I’m not posh and I don’t even like Martinis - for fuck’s sake man, it’s got a combination lock, stop that.” Jev looks pleadingly at him and he really is bleeding quite a lot so Sam closes his eyes in a way that’s quite inadvisable while driving down a snow-covered mountain road. “It’s your date of birth.”

Jev looks at him quizzically, “The real one, I think.”

Jean-Eric blushes, which is as weird a reaction as he ever gives and they lapse into silence, the yellow headlights of the Ferrari turning the drifts into a soft glow around them as Jev quietly wraps his own wound, struggling with tying the bandage at any kind of pressure. Sam lets him fight it for a few minutes, before pulling over and gently taking Jev’s hand in his, redoing the dressing.

“Is that tight enough?” Jev grunts, neither of them looking at each other. Jean-Eric’s hand is hot, under the bandage and Sam thinks it must hurt quite a lot, now the adrenaline has worn off. Dried crimson flakes are crusted into his fingernails - Sam’s too, now - but at least the bleeding seems to have stopped  and the large, open gash across his palm looks clean.

Sam ties off the bandage, into a bow because, well - “Happy Christmas.”

“Thank you - I forgot to get you anything, I’m afraid.” Jean-Eric looks tired and hasn’t taken his hand back, leaning towards Sam over the gearstick. The air between them, still crisp from the frozen alps, feels like the drop of a chasm neither of them would hesitate to plunge down.

‘Tis the season, so Sam leans forward and presses their lips together, briefly, smoothing his thumbs down the skin of Jean-Eric’s wrist, feeling his pulse between the fabric of his suit and the heat of his skin. Jev makes a soft noise that is nothing like the theatrics of the ferry, kisses back tenderly just for a moment.

The snort from the back seat is sort of worth it, as Sam pulls back and starts the car again.

“I’ve got a Jaguar,” Mitch offers, while they continue to ignore him, “And martinis are quite nice. The porn star ones. Can you drop me off at the train station?”

\-----

**08:15 December 21 2013**

**Kempten, Germany**

“ _Don’t get shot”_ Alex is hissing at him through the earpiece and look, Ace can fucking talk - Mitch is _so_ not getting shot. For a start, he’s not sure what to do if he does and it’d be really embarrassing.

“Yeah, yeah, ok - you’re meant to be giving me directions.” He tries to sound seductive and in control, murmuring under his breath as he basically shanks the access panel covering and does some blunt-force rewiring he’d be embarrassed about under most circumstances.

“ _What does ‘_ give it to me harder’ _mean here?”_ Mitch resists the urge to groan audibly.

“Run it through the tracer programme - the words don’t matter, it’s got geolocation and you’ve got the map, where am I meant to be going?” He ducks into an alcove and tries to work out how many guards there are in here. Mitch knows about five words of German, none of which is likely to help here - he’s always been a bit reliant on Google Translate.

“ _Ok, yes, I can’t do ten things at once, it’s running”_ Mitch doesn’t stop himself laughing, “ _and yeah I know I always ask for things quicker, sorry.”_

There are three guards in the hall but one isn’t paying any attention and two are sort of drifting, moving from one spot to the other, which gives Mitch plenty of time. “It’s ok Ace, I don’t mind being fast for you.”

“ _You better get back for Christmas. Ok, it’s the third elevator and then you want basement level 17.”_ Mitch nods, slipping down the hallway and out of sight of the first two guards. Then realises Alex can’t hear him nod and whispers a response because it really annoys him when Ace does that.

He snakes an arm round a bulkhead to call the elevator, feeling like his pulse must actually be audible and trying not to hold his breath. God, the guy that captured Daniel is somewhere in here - Mitch really hopes he’s not like the Andre dude because he sort of vaguely thinks he kinda knows halfway what he’s doing but Andre would fuck him up like a crumpled tissue.

The lift doors open and he forces himself not to take a deep breath before sliding round the bulkhead, pressed as far into the wall as he possibly can be, and then through the closing doors. Ok, ok, done that. Basement level 17, basement level 17, this is fine.

He checks through his pockets in the lift - wires, picks, USB cables, a knife and a gun he has no idea how to use but figures might come in handy, pressed on him by Sam at the station. And his phone, which he is using the bluetooth earpiece for correctly because he knows how much these things cost and how much of a colossal ass pain it is to wipe them every _fucking_ time the field agents drop them during a gunfight or whatever.

“ _Ok, there’s another guy in the room with him_.” Ugh, fuck - Mitch tightens his grip on the knife. He’s fairly sure he could stab someone - he might not be massively combat-trained but he’s fit and agile and knows which end is pointiest. He clicks the button on his belt to let Alex know he heard, focussed entirely on the opening doors.

The corridor at this level is quiet. It all feels too easy, breaking into here - isn’t it supposed to be their main base? That makes him feel unsettled. He should’ve fashioned a fake WEC ID or something rather than barging in like some kind of field agent idiot but there was no _time_ and no one ever cares about the nerds and he’s going to fucking rescue Daniel, alright? Their, like, _thing_ might be well over but Mitch is a gentleman. Possibly. Somehow.

He reaches the door to the only room with a light on down this corridor, through the small panels of glass. It’s pretty much got to be here - and the door doesn’t even look locked or alarmed. Is everyone an absolute amateur around here or has he accidentally got good at spying?

Still, there’s some dude in there with Daniel, he doesn’t want to just rush in. He tentatively pushes the handle, seeing if he can get the door to open slightly, just unseal enough that he can hear what’s going on while pushing the button on his belt loop twice, to let Alex know he found Daniel.

He’s not expecting an immediate shout of “Come in,” unmistakably Daniel’s voice. Oh no, have they like - roped him up to something and they’re torturing him or something? Mitch closes his eyes and wills himself to be braver than he feels like he might really be - he’s got to get Daniel out, no one else is going to do it.

Mitch pushes the door with his foot, enough that he can look in as his hand goes to the knife handle - fuck, maybe he should go for the gun, people panic more but then if he couldn’t shoot it he’d look like a total twat. And he doesn’t want anyone else to get any guns out, he’s really serious about the not wanting to be shot thing.

Daniel is sitting on a table, behind a guy at a computer chair and they’re looking at something, “Oh yeah - send the fisting thing, that’s hilarious.”

“You’re foul.” The dark haired guy looks up, at Mitch. “Seriously, come in.”

Mitch shuffles round the door, confused, gets his back against the wall. Has… has Daniel defected? But that would make no sense, he was giving Mitch information. Unless that was to make him trust him? Is he like, double defecting like Jean-Eric? Fuck.

“Err, what’s going on?” He tries and fails to sound commanding.

“You don’t think you just walked in here on your own, do you?” The dark haired guy laughs, which is obnoxious - this is Mitch’s _second_ rescue of the week, fuck dammit. And the last one had a lot of explosions. “I want to be taken into custody, I’m coming to GP2.”

“What?” God, no. What?

“He’s good, he’d totally be handy in the basement - who’s picking you up?” Daniel is eating… snacks or something. And there seem to be some beer bottles around the table he’s sitting on, which is not exactly how the room Mitch rescued Jean-Eric from was set up.

Mitch tries not to look too stupid, this is not what he expected. “Err, no one. I’m meeting Sam in Paris. I just… I just came on my own.” He feels like an idiot, which wasn’t really how he imagined his heroic solo field debut, saving other nerds when no one else would. “On the train.”

Lucas nods, “Ok, you are going to have to steal the Avant. Do you know how to wire the dash?”

“Err, yeah.” Mitch is still confused, “Why don’t you drive it?”

Daniel rolls his eyes, “Because we’ve got to knock him out in the fight in the yard - come here, it’s all planned out.”

\-----

**09:15 December 21 2013**

**Régent Petite France Hotel, Strasbourg**

Sam flails at his phone to switch off the fifth alarm he’s set to try and make sure they get out of here in time, not helped by Jev grabbily settling further onto his chest as he does so. They’re completely tangled up in the sheets and quilt and Jean-Eric has given up on his share of the pillows, preferring to snooze on Sam apparently.

He finds himself not really minding, watching the thumb of Jean-Eric’s injured hand stroke down his own ribs. “Fuck, Jev, what am I gonna do with you?”

Jean-Eric has a terrible glint in his eye when he looks up at Sam, clearly about to move and do something more pleasurable than practical. “Not like that, I know how to do that. I mean am I going to turn you in or what?”

Jev sticks his tongue out at him, then shifts upwards, kisses Sam slowly. It’s the new way, not the frantic, forbidden, I’m-gonna-steal-your-shit-and-dump-you-in-a-bin way - and Sam thinks maybe it’s just for him, which is a nice thought as he’s under no illusion he’d somehow reform Jean-Eric entirely. It’s also ludicrously sexy, stubble rubbing between them and Jev’s hair falling forwards to brush against Sam’s forehead, tender.

Which makes it very unfair when Jean-Eric pulls back, cups Sam’s chin and looks at him very seriously, almost _lovingly,_ to say “You will have to decide. But I’ll go along with whatever you do.”

\-----

**14:49 December 24 2013**

**Paris, France**

Sam should really be arresting all of these people and the mental strain is showing on his face, Jean-Eric acutely aware of all the stress tells from all the times he’s been the cause of them. He steps forward and puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder, rubbing his thumb over the tension-ridge of muscle against his back.

“Look, I don’t mind the rest of you but Andre is no.” Sam sighs heavily, “Seriously, he’s tried to kill me like six times in the past week.”

Lucas looks crestfallen, “Only because it was his job.”

“And he’s an absolute bastard.” Sam’s hand goes to Jev’s leg, possessive and he feels weirdly flattered by how offended Sam seems about Andre’ kidnapping him. “Honestly, I could be shot anytime already and you’re asking me to take in one of the guys most likely to do the shooting?”

Jean-Eric isn’t keen on it either, to be fair. Also he’s not had much time for laundry lately and actually _is_ wearing leopard print underwear, which there’s no way Andre would know but still feels somewhat uncomfortable and not just because the elastic’s a bit frayed. On the other hand, there’s surely some saying about it being better to be holding the leash of the big dog than being barked at.

“We might need him.” Sam twists his neck round to glare at Jev, digs his fingers into his leg.

“For what, exactly?” God, Sam is so fierce and non-strategic, sometimes.

Jev moves to press against Sam’s back, putting his arm around his chest and feel Sam relax back into him, eyes closed, giving in to whatever bullshit is happening, “It might be better if we tell him who to try and kill.”

\-----

**25 December 2013**

**STILL in Paris, France**

There’s a knock on the door, which is weird enough that even Mitch and Daniel look up from whatever they’re doing with the Playstation. Jean-Eric shrugs at Sam, lopsidedly from where he’s slumped on the sofa, one arm run along the back to stroke his fingers through Sam’s hair while he’s reading. Sam tries not to blush too much, under the fairly intense glare of Lucas-or-whoever.

Andre appears in the doorway, also shrugs but at the same time as loading a handgun, which seems less louche. “Who knows about here?”

Sam joins in on the shrugging, nearly takes his hand off Jean-Eric’s knee and then doesn’t quite, almost patting him, “Most of GP2 I guess, it’s not especially secret - I figured it’d be pretty skeleton staff at Christmas though.”

Everyone in the room tenses. “Ok, ok - I’ll go and check - we should be able to see from the balcony, it’s probably just someone who thinks we’re new neighbours or something.”

He begrudgingly peels himself off the sofa, slides his feet back into his slippers to pad across the room - god, it would have been a good idea for this safe house to have a bottle of port in stock. Also he probably should have put a coat on before going out on the balcony, trying to look innocent while glancing down at the street below, which features, amongst the snow-coated vehicles from last night, a steaming Aston Martin. Weird.

Looking over the edge, he sees Alex, struggling with what looks like a lot of bags of shopping. Spotting Sam on the balcony, he shouts up “You can tell Mitch I _did_ sort the Christmas dinner.”

\-----

**12:40 January 06 2014**

**Notting Hill, London**

Sam whistles while he’s unlocking the door to the safe house he sort of vaguely thinks of as “his” flat. Partly because he enjoys it and also because when you know there are a lot of very jumpy people behind the door, it’s better to warn them you’re about to come through it.

He takes his shoes off on the way in, glares pointedly at Alex until he does the same because they’re not animals and this is a nice flat, even if he has let a load of semi-feral WEC agents and whatever Jev is these days in. And forgotten to tell GP2 about that, which is probably awkward.

Actually, it’s a lot worse than awkward. They’ve definitely bought themselves some time but Sam is pretty sure he’s fired - and fired spies tend to get the sort of gardening leave where you’re six foot underneath it. It’s not like he can defect to WEC - he’s got two of _their_ traitors staying in his spare bedroom and oh god, they’re definitely going to have to find somewhere else to live.

When they make it up the stairs, there’s a strange man in the lounge, which is the sort of thing that makes spies who are perhaps acting outside their parameters a whole lot extremely nervous.

“Err guys, this makes me extremely nervous.” Sam’s right hand goes to the gun holstered discreetly at the small of his back, under his jacket.

“It’s ok - it’s… it’s ok.” Jean-Eric looks sort of excited, which is frankly somewhat worrying.

“My name is Alejandro - I’m a big fan of your work, Sam.” The guy has a glass of champagne, which is confusing because Sam swears there wasn’t any in the flat, as Andre pours him one from some enormous ...jeroboam or whatever.

“Right. Err. Which bits? And what do you want?” Sam’s not totally sure about anyone who’s a fan of fucking up your mission and taking in a bunch of loser enemies like stray cats, even if it turns out Andre is surprisingly adept at pouring drinks, so maybe they could start a cocktail bar or something to fill in the time before they’re all shot.

This Alejandro guy motions at Andre to give Alex a glass as well, the German giving him a slightly scrutinising look as he passes it across like he can’t quite believe Alex is old enough. Once they’ve all been served, Alejandro clinks his glass against Sam’s; “I like the bits where you were a good man, more than a spy; and I’d like to talk to you about joining Fédération Espionage."

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand it done. Thank you to C & L for proofreading this hot mess and W for putting up with me spending half of Christmas writing it.
> 
> Here's the suggested soundtrack:  
> (the start) Leo Stannard - Lost (Embody Remix)  
> (Berlin) Dapayk & Padberg - Stop Running  
> (Marrakesh/Daniel's interrogation) Zola Jesus - Hikikomori  
> (Bit more Berlin) Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy  
> (Interrogations and more Berlin) Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch  
> (Tangiers) Claptone ft. Nathan Nicholson - Heartbeat  
> (the ferry) Blood Orange - It Is What It Is  
> (Faenza) Banks - Drowning (STWO Remix)  
> (the debrief) HEALTH - Blue Monday  
> (the drive across Germany) CVRL - Subterfuge  
> (the cable car/the fight) Burial - U Hurt Me  
> (the drive down the mountain) Tiesto - Ten Seconds Before Sunrise (Moska remix)  
> (the sort-of rescue/the hotel) David Bowie - Modern Love  
> (the end) MUNA - Crying On The Bathroom Floor


End file.
